Aside the multiplayer being absolutely garbage, this whole melee shit is repetitive and disorienting. I mean, Serious Sam 3 had this too but you couldn't spam the melee moves all the time because there were 10x more enemies that would kill you in an instant. Locations are mega boring and there's no atmosphere whatsoever. No mod support either but it's not like anybody expected otherwise.

I was more or less meh on the game watching videos. Then I actually played it and reversed my preconceived notions. Kinda like how VATS in Fallout doesn't seem to get boring, I don't get bored doing the take down moves at all. I certainly haven't felt disorientated and I'm probably the first guy that gets dizzy playing a lot of newer games. The melee kills keep me moving forward, always moving, killing something. This is pretty much what Doom was for me too back in the day and precisely what I felt Doom 3 lacked.

Mister_Prophet wrote:EDIT: One gripe, if I have one. The hardest difficulties are locked

You can choose them from the start, the red just makes it look like they're locked.

Sneaky...

I've been enjoying the new Doom. I like the way they present the story for the most part, though the one or two scenes were doomguy is just calmly watching through a window as an NPC says or does something is a bit awkward. I would have thought someone who was "worse than rage" would maybe not just wait around while someone talks at them. And of course the pacing of the gameplay is good.

The kill animations work really well in the game even though they don't look so good in video, and there is enough of them they don't get stale. What gets stale a lot faster are the animations for picking up the upgrades, which are always the same.

The rune challenges are a part of the game I didn't expect to like but really enjoy.

As for the game itself, it's potentially my favourite FPS in almost a decade. Since ~2007 I think the Call of Duty 4 copying outright reverted most aspects of the genre; the spectacle and set-pieces had novelty value at first, but once that faded in a couple of years of clones you were left with less enemy and weapon variety, pedestrian environments and incredibly linear level design. In mainstream FPS that state has somehow managed to persist for almost ten years at this point. There have been various ones I've liked (Bulletstorm, Metro series and the new Wolfensteins, among others), but they still tend to be somewhat rooted in the COD scripting style, even if they have more going on around it (namely because they tend to follow Half-Life more). There have also been multiple FPS that profess to be "old-school", and, while I've enjoyed some of them I've rarely found them actually "old-school"; mostly because they tend to be nothing but a series of monster arenas.

This is the first one I've played that actually does feel like that, and that's despite it doing a lot of stuff that couldn't really be done in those older games (like some of the more advanced monster behaviours); it's got an arsenal of weapons that keep their use with a few exceptions, a bunch of monsters that require different approaches to fight, it's fast, and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, level design with lots of secrets, foreshadowing, and interlinking paths. Admittedly the latter half tends towards more linear arena stuff, but even then there tends to be various secrets on the path, and it fits the pacing pretty well to be able to go all-out with all the weapons and upgrades you've picked up in the earlier maps. Also, while the "main" story is kind of intrusive at times the game does a great job characterising Doomguy through a small set of actions, as well as not taking itself too seriously. I've got minor issues with it (the first couple of weapons are lacking in their feel, the rare pseudo cutscenes are kind of irritating on replays, the AAA-mandatory upgrade bloat sets in a little towards the end and results in some really broken stuff, and the previously mentioned general slight level design drop-off later on), and maybe they'd be bigger problems if there was competition for this game, but, well, I don't consider there to be any. Even the glory kill thing works fine in practice, and actually leads to a lot of strategy later on as you have to weigh up whether to get in close for a health fill-up or stay back but potentially open yourself to bigger danger later.

As far as ID goes it's easily my fourth favourite game of theirs after the first Dooms and Quake 1, and them pulling that off with all the big names gone makes that even more impressive. Especially as the marketing deserves an award for managing to make the game look as unappealing as possible at every opportunity.

I'm glad to see someone else here enjoying it, since I'm doing the same. I asked for so little in a Doom game and I feel like the third just had so much of what we didn't need, but was added because ID releases since the Quake 2 always feel like they're "on the ropes" with other shooters and have to compete on their level. What this means a lot of the time is that things creep up in ID shooters that have business being there, but show up almost as a defensive measure.

In Doom 3 this meant agonizing PDA screens and making the player stop for "story" when Doom and Doom 2 managed to leave us just fine with text intermissions between episodes and the look of injury (or madness) on our Doomguy's HUD face. In games like Rage, it meant taking what could have been a fun combat system if only it was focused but was instead forced into a weak borderlands/fallout template that succeeded in making the player want to just play those games.

The new Wolfenstein was a better outing, and so is this. You're right MMAN about the upgrade system being the awkward stand out thing. It's there for no other reason than to compete with what's current. What's funny to me is that alternate firing modes are finally in Doom, which is something that was sorely needed in Doom 3 and was one thing they didn't take from other shooters of the time.

What made me chuckle about UBeserker's "bargain bin" dismissal was that Bulletstorm is a game he quite likes (or so I've heard him say in the past) and one you (MMAN) cited as well. Yet, that game is the definition of a bargain bin game and was one mere weeks after it released, a game I've often referred to as the shooter equivalent to a premature ejaculation. All talk, no walk. I dunno if this new Doom's got the walk yet for the long haul, but this one definitely has bite and I'm well passed the point I usually start to fade out of interest with current shooters. I'll have a final verdict when I complete the campaign.

Pretty sure this game will be bargain bin too as much as Bulletstorm if the multiplayer remains this terrible (and by terrible I mean absolutely fucking dogshit).

I liked Bulletstorm, I liked it more than this because it felt fresh. Didn't play like a goddamn shooting gallery pretending to be an oldschool shooter just because Bethshitda marketed as such. BS came with its own weapon design and FPS gameplay mechanics. The locations were also great tropical hi-tech city crap instead of the obsessively MassEffect-ish industrial outpost of lava or a random demonic cave that recall me of Quake 2 (and fuck Quake 2). BS in its big hours (and in those trailers) were impressive to me, inspirational too cause it gave me some ideas for G59. Yeah sure, BS had also its massively dumb part throughout story and characters but a lot of the lines had me smiling hard, especially when they were mentioned in the mid of the action. I came back to it several times because no other FPS had a similar gameplay experience.

I don't see anything special or worth anything more than a 7/10 in the first hour of this Doom: just your generic Mars outpost, a bunch of enemies appearing there and there and all you do is either shooting or spamming this annoying melee attack. They also took the Jackals from Halo and made them somehow even more annoying to kill. It doesn't feel interesting. And it's not worth 60 bucks when the MP sucks ass and when there are better options around.Frankly, Doom has been always just a name-sake series. It paved the way to the FPS craze but the game themselves were objectively average. The same is with this game, probably ok on the long run but far away from the quality of non-COD fps games that came out these years - not that many to begin with, outside of Hard Reset (which is getting a redux release soon but it looks... slow as balls now?? Wtf) and Serious Sam 3 which was and still is the last best FPS game that came out in recent years.

Yeha for some of the gameplay flaws it has (no crouch, bit too linear, enormously hard if you take bad upgrades, expansion section not as cool as the city one in terms of style), its desolated cyberpunk atmosphere was just too good, sounds and destructible stuff were fantastic, the graphic/lighting quality was absolutely mind-blowing, bosses were cool and it felt really satisfying completing it on higher difficulties. The two-guns-to-five-guns each system had its merits and made the gameplay being strategical instead of just mindless shooting, a formula of its own.I hope the redux delivers actually.

The problem that Bulletstorm had was that the "freshness" of its gameplay peaked at about two hours. I remember literally running out of chances of using any style points to unlock anything new midway through the game and by that point I was bored of whipping people into things in the environment. Cool visual design is always awesome, but not when it's wasted on gameplay that's fun for about as long as a clever demo. My comparison to the new Doom is suitable because it does a lot of stuff that seems familiar, but I'm still into it and enjoying myself. The melee attacks are quick, but consistently important in every shootout I've been in just because of the health drops. I've compared it to the Rally system in Bloodborne, where you're emboldened to be more aggressive.

I said this on another forum, but I've noticed a lot of the negative statements about the new Doom seem to be coming from people who aren't actually playing the campaign. They are watching the campaign. UB, in your first hour with the game how far into the Martian complex did you get to? Or did you mean you were watching the first hour as uploaded by someone online?

Mister_Prophet wrote:You're right MMAN about the upgrade system being the awkward stand out thing. It's there for no other reason than to compete with what's current. What's funny to me is that alternate firing modes are finally in Doom, which is something that was sorely needed in Doom 3 and was one thing they didn't take from other shooters of the time.

I actually don't mind the upgrade system too much in general; you're pretty strong even before the upgrades (as opposed to a lot of games that make you start off pathetic and upgrades take you to a base level of competence), and they do provide a nice reward for exploration, with the previous point meaning you aren't too screwed over if you only find a small amount. I think the alt-fire system in particular works pretty well; you have to make the choices semi-blind, but they're all powerful enough to feel like good choices anyway while still affecting your playstyle (As compared to games like Hard Reset mentioned above, where if you make the "wrong" blind upgrade choices you make it way harder). There's certain firemodes I don't find much use but I've seen others elsewhere swear by them, which I take as a sign the balance is pretty good. The issues kick in with some of the combos later, like mixing the rune that gives infinite ammo under certain (not very difficult) conditions with stuff like the siege-mode chaingun, which results in something so strong it bypasses a lot of the intended design and lets you just stick to a small area mowing everything down, and I ended up intentionally not using it.

Mister_Prophet wrote:The melee attacks are quick, but consistently important in every shootout I've been in just because of the health drops. I've compared it to the Rally system in Bloodborne, where you're emboldened to be more aggressive.

I didn't make that link while playing, but I've heard other comparisons to it and it is very similar in spirit; like the rally system it tempts you to work against your instincts and takes more risks as your situation gets worse, which in turn leads to exciting turnarounds as you convert a bad situation into an advantage (or suffer a dumb death from overconfidence/panic).

Semfry wrote:The issues kick in with some of the combos later, like mixing the rune that gives infinite ammo under certain (not very difficult) conditions with stuff like the siege-mode chaingun, which results in something so strong it bypasses a lot of the intended design and lets you just stick to a small area mowing everything down, and I ended up intentionally not using it.

I've really noticed this as well. In general the fully upgraded super shotgun seems to outclass every other weapon but the BFG, and shotgun ammo is never in short supply even without runes. Other weapons, such as the pistol, combat shotgun and heavy assault rifle, get used only very rarely later in the game.

I've yet to check out the "snapmap" feature or multiplayer, just been focused on the campaign.